A Mother in Medicine

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Whenever a door closes, another door to greater things opens. When I lost my job as a research scientist while on maternity leave earlier this year, it was a big blow to our family. I had been employed there for the past 9 years fresh out of university and had gotten used to the work culture and routine. It was a shock to my system to suddenly not be a part of it anymore.

Even though I knew the lay-offs were company wide and were not a reflection of my performance, I still couldn’t help feeling shame and guilt, “Had I done something wrong?” or “Was it because I requested an additional few months of maternity leave?”

For the past 10 years, I have had the desire to become a doctor. There have been various planned and unplanned detours along the way and we ultimately decided to start a family before medical school. Once we had our two beautiful children, the question then became, “When do I apply to medical school?”. It was not an easy decision to make. Our children were very young, we had financial commitments, stable careers and paychecks. When would be the right time to rock the boat and make such a big change to our life?

Following the loss of my job, my husband encouraged me that this was the perfect time to make a change and focus my sights on medical school. I have to say that the last few months have been some of the most wonderful months of my life. I have spent valuable time with my children, become healthier, focused my sense of direction towards medical school and developed new hobbies such as writing and blogging which I have come to love!

Now that my medical school applications have been submitted and as I wait to hear back from medical schools, I cannot predict what will happen. But I do know that the past few months have been a breath of fresh air and have allowed me to strengthen the bonds within my family and gain a greater sense of perspective about what is most important in life.

So I would like to encourage you that no matter what comes your way, something good can come out of it. It may not seem like it at the moment when we are sinking, but there is always a way to get back onto solid ground. An obstacle or hurdle need not stop us. It can redirect us to something better than we could have imagined.